Post 8637
The Most Amazing Space Photos This Week!
Mesmerizing Clouds of Saturn
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill/Flickr
Brilliant hues of blue and gold are smeared across Saturn’s cloud tops in this view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Citizen scientist Kevin Gill processed the image using near-infrared data that the spacecraft collected just before it passed through Saturn’s ring plane in December of 2012. [See the album.]
Boeing’s Heat Shield Put to the Test
Credit: Boeing
A heat shield for Boeing’s new CST-100 Starliner space capsule undergoes qualification testing at the company’s Huntington Beach Facility in California. The spacecraft will be used to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. [See the album.]
Happy New Year from the International Space Station!
Credit: NASA/Joe Acaba/Twitter
An international crew of three NASA astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts and one Japanese taikonaut celebrate the new year at the International Space Station by sharing a meal in their festive (and matching) Expedition 54 T-shirts. [See the album.]
A Spiral in Space
Credit: European Southern Observatory
Like a wheel within a wheel, this dazzling barred spiral galaxy (called NGC 1398) is sculpted by ribbons of dust and gas in this view captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The galaxy is 65 million light-years away in the constellation The Furnace (Fornax). [See the album.]
Happy New Year from Space!
Credit: JAXA/Norishige Kanai
Astronaut Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) celebrated the New Year of 2018 with this photo of a sunrise from the International Space Station on his Twitter. [See the album.]
Jupiter Clouds Look Blue
Credit: Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran
Jupiter’s swirling cloud tops look like a sheet of blue velvet in a new image from NASA’s Juno probe. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created the image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument on Juno. [ Blue Velvet: Jupiter’s Cloud Tops Appear Azure in New Juno Image ]
Perseus Cluster
Credit: NASA/ESA/CXO/Oxford University/NRAO/AUI/University of Montreal
The nature of dark matter might be revealed by studying a strange emission coming from the Perseus galaxy cluster. This composite image of the celestial region blends X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) with optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (pink) and radio-emission data from the Very Large Array (red) in New Mexico. [ Mysterious X-Ray Emission May Reveal Nature of Dark Matter ]
Supermoon in Las Vegas
Credit: Tyler S Leavitt/www.tslclick.com
Skywatchers got a glimpse of a spectacular full moon this New Year’s Day — the largest the moon will appear in 2018. Tyler S. Leavitt captured this image of the bright full moon in the cloudy Las Vegas sky on Jan. 1, 2018. [ Biggest Full Moon of 2018 Shines in Spectacular New Year’s Photos ]